Yesterday I told you to read Jane Eyre, and undoubtedly you immediately ran out and did it, so now I implore you to watch the 2011 Focus Features adaptation. There are other movie version (I smell a blog post coming on...) but this one is restrained and moody, just like the book, and never feels the need to indulge in any over-dramatization or sexualization that didn't come directly from the page. Plus, this one has Fassbender so...
Book Trailers: 'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert
Ooer. You can keep your '50 Shades of Grey' and I'll enjoy this exquisite adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's novel. It's rated R for "Some Sexuality and Nudity," which sounds quite promising, but for me, the costumes and cinematography and scowls are the source of all pleasure. If you haven't yet read this novel, please do, and while you're at it, read everything Flaubert ever wrote, including his letters, which are raunchy and witty.
Book Trailers: 'Peter Pan' by J.M. Barrie
This is a stretch because as far as I can tell, this Joe Wright version of Peter Pan is an original story within J.M. Barrie's fictional universe. To be honest I think this trailer looks kinda bad; I think we can all agree that origin stories are getting old. But it's Joe Wright so it gets a free pass from me.
It seems like no one reads Peter Pan anymore because the various movie versions have reached such an intense level of cultural saturation that we take for granted that everyone knows the story. My three-year old niece is super into Peter Pan right now, for example, which means her memory of the Peter Pan story will go back to her very earliest memories, which probably means she won't be motivated to read the book. That's not going to deter me from buying it for her, because I force my reading tastes on her as much as possible, but also because it's a really great book. I would recommend it to someone as young as 12 but adults can enjoy it quite a bit too. And not surprisingly, it's even darker and weirder than the movie versions (okay, maybe not including 'Hook' which is its own special thing that we should also force on children).
On another note, wtf is up with Hugh Jackman's look?
Book Trailers: 'Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy
Joe Wright's 'Anna Karenina' is the movie trailer we all have to thank for the idea of Book Trailers in the first place; I saw the trailer, as did my fellow book club members. We swooned, appropriately, and agreed on a two-month commitment to the novel, which luckily none of us had yet successfully finished. Now I'm very glad we did it because I really, really love the novel.
This feels like the appropriate moment to digress on the nature of film adaptations of literary source material, because as you can probably tell from the trailer, this is not a traditional movie adaptation. The screenplay for this particular version of Anna Karenina was written by the playwright Tom Stoppard, and there is a very self-aware, theatrical vibe to the entire thing, which I found to be utterly charming and visually stunning. And most importantly, it was something that could only be achieved on camera, making this Anna Karenina distinctly a film that knows it's a film. Some people hated it; those are probably the same folks who hate Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice, which is not a word-for-word translation of the novel; he tweaks and cuts and rewrites here and there, and in some instances, he uses music, or camera movement, or lighting, or costumes to communicate with the audience. Jane Austen or Leo Tolstoy fans balk at this kind of faithlessness, but Joe Wright is not a novelist, he's a film director, and he is using the tools of the cinema to tell the story. I don't have a problem with a good Masterpiece Theater production that is extremely faithful and literal, but I admire and enjoy much more literary adaptations that take some risks do things that can only be done in a movie.
This version of Anna Karenina is a perfect example of that, as it communicates so much of the story without dialogue. And it is an absolute masterpiece of film aesthetics -- regardless of whether or not you "like" or approved of the adaptation, you remember certain scenes and moments because they were so beautifully executed. I'm feeling woozy just thinking about it. And I don't think I need to remind you that it's cold outside and you need to watch a movie in which an entire train is magically frozen solid.
Book Trailers is a recurring post that tricks you into reading the books that inspired great movies (or just great trailers).
Book Trailers: 'Le Petit Prince' by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
There is a wackadoo, bat-shit crazy film adaptation of Le Petit Prince, and it is truly a shame that second-year French students will no longer get to indulge in a week-long blow-off viewing of it. That said, this looks utterly charming and I think the framing device they've come up with will be very successful.
If you somehow managed to make it through childhood without having read Le Petit Prince you should check it out before the movie premieres. It can be read in one sitting and is a pseudo-picture book, although as an adult I wonder why we pretend this is book for children? It seems more like a book about a child, written for adults. Spoiler alert, it's sad and there is a rose who's a real dirtbag and much talk of baobab trees. Like...a LOT of baobabs.
Book Trailers is a recurring post that tricks you into reading the books that inspired great movies (or just great trailers).
Book Trailers: 'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel
Have I mentioned yet how much I love Hilary Mantel? I'm pretty sure I have. But just in case you didn't pay attention the first fourteen times, here is a trailer for the BBC adaptation of the Thomas Crowmwell trilogy. I will keep this brief, thus leaving you with more free time to read the actual novels, which are the greatest. They start slowly and painfully and you will have to slog through for a few hundred pages or so, but once you're able to work out her prose style and get acquainted with the ridiculous number of important characters, you won't be able to read it fast enough, and you, like me, will be anxiously awaiting the publication of the third and final volume.
Book Trailers is a recurring post that tricks you into reading the books that inspired great movies (or just great trailers).
Book Trailers: 'Far From the Madding Crowd' by Thomas Hardy
I do not need cajoling to read Thomas Hardy, but just in case you do, British National Treasure Carey Mulligan is up to the task. Far From the Madding Crowd is not usually anyone's favorite Thomas Hardy novel, nor the most popular, but it is luscious and as chock-full of repressed passions as any of the others. I went the first two minutes of this trailer thinking it was for an adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, so you can watch this video and have a pretty good sense of what Thomas Hardy is all about.
Book Trailers is a recurring post that tricks you into reading the books that inspired great movies (or just great trailers).
Book Trailers: 'Bleak House' by Charles Dickens
Apologies for the terrible quality of this video, and the utter cheese-fest that is the Masterpiece Classics Bleak House trailer. Try to ignore the fact that this trailer seems more excited by the actors than by the characters or the story, and don't pay too close of attention or the plot will be completely spoiled. Try instead to focus on the transcendence of Agent Scully, on display here in all her melancholy glory. I saw this trailer a few years ago, probably on the DVD of some other Masterpiece mini series, and it prompted me to read not just Bleak House, but six other novels by Charles Dickens, who I had ingeniously avoided up to that point. And all for Gillian Anderson. And just in case you need further inspiration:
If you enjoy this type of thing, there are literally hundreds of mini series you should be watching (and accompanying novels you should be reading).
Book Trailers: 'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas is a really terrific book, and an utterly garbage movie. Nevertheless, I feel that this trailer describes the content and its structure very well-- that is, Cloud Atlas is sprawling, ambitious, and is structured into six stories within one another like a Russian nesting doll. There are shared characters and many through-lines, which the directors tried to replicate by having a small group of actors play all of the major characters. That is not a bad idea in theory, and I think for the antagonist roles it works rather well. But for some reason they decided that this should involve a lot of race-swapping, which is never a good idea. So by all means, watch 'Cloud Atlas' if you want to see Halle Barry in Twilight-style whiteface (you don't), or better yet, read the novel, which is brilliant and stunning and riveting and has no race-swapping of any kind.
Book Trailers: 'Norwegian Wood' by Haruki Murakami
The 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature will be announced later this week and Haruki Murakami is by far the favorite. The Japanese author published an extraordinary new novel in August, and just recently dropped a new short story, just for the heck of it; that only adds to his already impressive oeuvre, including the blockbuster IQ84, one of the most talked-about novels in recent years.
My experience with his writing goes back quite a bit further to Norwegian Wood, his first novel that skyrocketed him to literary fame in Japan, so much so that he left the country in order to work in peace. When a friend started dating a girl from Japan, I interrogated her immediately on its popularity, and she confirmed that just about everyone reads it as a teen, maybe comparable to The Catcher in the Rye in America. Although she admitted, it's not exactly age-appropriate because of all the sex and suicide and whatnot. I saw the trailer for the film adaptation via Hollister Hovey and was struck by the incredible aesthetics of it, along with the Johnny Greenwood score (of Radiohead fame, and the composer/musician responsible for the scores of 'The Master' and 'There Will Be Blood,' two of my favorite movies). So I read the novel, with the primary objective of seeing the movie afterward, but also because Murakami was very much "on my list" and this seemed as good a reason as any to check it out.
It makes for a quick but emotionally intense read; I'm reading Alice Munro these days and her stories remind me of the Norwegian Wood experience of diving head first into a very intense but short-lived narrative. It is considered to be Murakami's most straight-forward narrative, so it is not necessarily indicative of what to expect from his more recent novels. I should mention also that he is very involved in the translation of his work from Japanese to English, so this is not one of those instances when your college friends tell you that it simply isn't the same if you can't read it in Japanese (Gabriel Garcia Marquez read French and Russian literature translated into Spanish and it didn't hurt him any, just sayin').
If melancholy and teenage suicide and manic pixie dream girls aren't really your cup of tea, this might not be for you, but it is really beautiful and sad and gorgeous, and if you're like me, it will make you crave good noodles constantly.
Book Trailers: 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald
My round-up of Back to School reading materials included quite a few movie trailers, mostly because I was too lazy to photograph each and every book, but also because the stuff I was recommending happened to have been adapted into some pretty terrific movies. This got me thinking about just how frequently I see a movie trailer and make the decision to read the book its based upon; the answer is constantly. I love movie trailers and I love books, but I feel very meh about movies themselves. It's actually the perfect solution because a movie trailer should give you enough information to make an informed decision about whether or not a book is worth your time. Thus, Book Trailers, a recurring post on great movie trailers and the excellent books they inspired me to read.
The movie trailer for the recent adaptation of The Great Gatsby inspired a lot of discussion and enthusiasm in my book club, although we never got around to reading the book officially. I was inspired to re-read the very short novel, and managed to squeeze it into a weekend before I saw the movie in theaters. The movie is okay, but really long and certainly flawed, so do yourself a favor and watch the trailer, which is short and pretty perfect, and then read the book, which is also coincidentally, short and perfect. Most people read it in high school and then forget about it but it's short enough and important enough that it deserves to be read again and again.
I was already planning on discussing Maureen Corrigan's So We Read On in a Books on Books post, but I might as well plug it here. It's a compelling look at the novel and its author in historical context, as well as an informed analysis of significance, written by someone who has read it more than 50 times.